Over the last few years I have come to realize more and more that the foods we are eating are not meeting our bodily needs. My goal is to find foods that are free of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals and make as many meals from scratch in order to provide the most nutritious foods for my family.

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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Bee Keeping 101 (Part 5)

In the
spring the bees have a natural tendency to expand and they with swarm. This is
not swarming to harm as seen in some movies and tv shows.

The queen and half of
the workers will leave the hive and go en masse to a location such as a tree
branch or side of the house. From there, scouts will be sent to find the best
location for their new home.

Some bee keepers will have an extra hive with bait
(sugar water) to attract them if they swarm. The bees tend to be very gently
and can be tapped into a bucket and moved to a different hive.

You can also
manually split the hive in the spring (this is especially helpful if you have
lost a hive over the winter) and you want to do this before they swarm. To do
this, pull 2 frames of eggs and a couple frames of honey and place in new hive.

The new set of bees will be in turmoil for a time but the nurse bees will then
feed special enzymes to babies in order to create a new queen in a very short
time (sorry, I forget the exact amount!)

Protecting Your Bees

One benefit
of registration with the state and also joining the local beekeepers association is
notification of spraying for mosquitoes, flies, etc.

Since bees do not fly at
night, close the entrance to the hive with wire cloth (with holes too small for
the bees to escape) the evening before the spray day and then re-open it the
day after.

If there is
any other spraying going on from companies, ask for the MSDS sheet and try to
be there when they spray to encouraging spraying as little as possible.

On a
personal note, you should also avoid using bug sprays and pesticides on your
property and avoid planting genetically modified crops (as the pesticides and
literally within the crop- including the pollen and nectar which the bees eat,
as their stomachs will explode after eating).

The wire
cloth is also beneficial during the winter to keep out mice from the hive.
However this wire cloth needs to have holes large enough for the bees to get
out in the event of a nice day but small enough that mice cannot fit inside.